Another tragedy involving a child..

Foster parents arrested in disappearance of CA boy

OAKLAND, Calif. – The foster parents who held vigils pleading for the safe return of a missing 5-year-old boy with cerebral palsy have been arrested on suspicion of murder, Oakland police said Friday.

Louis Ross and Jennifer Campbell, who is the boy’s aunt, were being questioned by investigators in the case of Hasanni Campbell, who disappeared on Aug. 10 after Ross said he briefly left the boy outside his car in the parking lot of an upscale Oakland neighborhood shoe store where Campbell works.

The couple were arrested separately within an hour of each other, police spokesman Jeff Thomason said.

“This is not a missing persons case anymore. This is a homicide investigation,” Thomason said late Friday outside police headquarters in downtown Oakland. “We are talking to the people responsible. We do believe Hasanni Campbell is dead.”

Thomason would not say what led to the couple’s arrests or what led police to conclude that the boy was dead. Thomason said the boy’s body has not been found.

A team of investigators searched the couple’s home in Fremont on Friday.

The couple, who are engaged, took custody of Hasanni and his 1-year-old sister several months ago because their mother — Jennifer Campbell’s sister — had drug problems.

After the boy’s disappearance, his foster parents made tearful public pleas for his safe return, including vigils outside the shoe store. Dozens of volunteers handed out fliers with Hasanni’s face and held a car wash to add to a $10,000 reward.

There’s even a Web site — findhasanni.com — where his foster family tries to explain their role.

“We understand that there is a lot of speculation out there due to misconceptions about our family and the environment Hasanni was living in but to us he is a son, a brother, a family member and so much more and not just a foster child,” a message from the site reads.

Both have denied any involvement in his disappearance.

But 10 days before the boy vanished, Ross sent an expletive-filled text message to Campbell, threatening to leave the boy alone on a train station platform, according to a police search warrant affidavit.

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle earlier this month, Ross said he sent the text message in frustration at a time when he planned to break up with Campbell, who is six months pregnant.

The day Hasanni disappeared, Ross said he went to the store’s front entrance to ask Campbell to open the back door, but when he returned to the parking lot, the boy was gone.

Police said they were mystified by how Hasanni could have disappeared from a crowded business district with no witnesses, and bloodhounds were unable to detect the scent of the missing boy outside the shoe shop.

Ross told a television station that he failed a lie detector test, but had cooperated with police “100 percent.”

Attorney John Burris, who has been advising the couple, said Friday he was surprised by their arrest.

“I’m not aware of any hard physical evidence that ties either one into a missing child,” Burris said.

Sherri-Lyn Miller, a volunteer whose company has created T-shirts and fliers during the search for Hasanni, said Friday she’s “stunned” by the couple’s arrests.

“I feel that we need to look for Hasanni even harder for him now,” Miller said. “I’m not going to stop looking for him.”

Well my dear friends we are back to the old and popular. Murder and suicide. Life is so precious why take anothers and why take your own?

Coyfee signing off…..

Police suspect murder-suicide in Arizona family’s death

updated 2:12 p.m. EDT, Fri August 7, 2009

(CNN) — Police in Scottsdale, Arizona, said Friday that they don’t know why a man fatally shot his two young sons and a woman believed to be his wife before turning the gun on himself. The bodies had been in the family’s rental home for several days before they were discovered Thursday afternoon, police spokesman Dave Pubins said in a statement. An out-of-state relative told police that the family had been out of touch and asked them to check the residence, Pubins said.

The father was identified Friday morning as Russell Gilman, 48, and the woman was tentatively identified as his wife, Stacey, Pubins said. He said a definite identification of the woman, thought to be 45 years old, was expected after an autopsy. The boys, who were not named, were ages 3 and 7, Pubins said. A second police spokesman, Mark Clark, told CNN affiliate KNXV-TV that a note and a weapon were found in the home, but he didn’t elaborate.

“They seemed to be very normal people, other than being quiet, no explanation, really,” neighbor Wayne Lehsten said. He added that the four never participated in neighborhood activities like block parties. “They kept to themselves,” he said. “We would greet them once in a while as we saw him take the children to school.” Pubins called the deaths “a tragic event” and said there was nothing to show that anyone outside the home was involved. A neighbor, who identified herself as Carrie, said she saw the commotion and police cars as she drove to her house. “I have children, and that makes me sad,” she told CNN affiliate KTVK-TV3. “This is the kind of a community — these few blocks here — [where] people are very friendly. There are potlucks and Halloween get-togethers, so why couldn’t they reach out to somebody?”

This is a real tragedy. A mother and her son are heading for a fun in the sun day and she gets lost. Her end result is the death of her son..Please pray for this family…

Coyfee is signing off….

Las Vegas boy, 11, dies after mom’s car gets stuck for days in blistering Death Valley

KEN RITTERAssociated Press Writer

6:21 PM CDT, August 7, 2009

LAS VEGAS (AP) — An 11-year-old boy died in the intense heat of Death Valley National Park after he and his mother became stranded in one of the world’s most inhospitable areas and survived for several days on bottled water, Pop-Tarts and cheese sandwiches, authorities said Friday.

Alicia Sanchez, 28, was found severely dehydrated and remained hospitalized in Las Vegas a day after being found with her dog, her dead son and a Jeep Cherokee buried up to its axles in sand.

She told rescuers in California‘s San Bernardino County that her son Carlos died Wednesday, days after she fixed a flat tire and continued into Death Valley, relying on directions from a GPS device in the vehicle.

“It’s in about as remote and isolated an area as you can find,” Death Valley National Park Chief Ranger Brent Pennington told The Associated Press. “How she got to that point, I don’t know.”

Pennington said Sanchez was found by a ranger who followed tire tracks off a dirt road into the Owlshead Mountains near the China Lake Naval Air Station, just inside the southwest corner of the vast national park near the California-Nevada state line. The park covers an area nearly the size of Connecticut.

Summer temperatures commonly run above 120 degrees in Death Valley, with the average daytime August temperature about 113. The high temperature Tuesday and Wednesday was 111, with a low of 96 early Tuesday.

An autopsy on the boy is scheduled for next week, but foul play was not suspected in his death, San Bernardino County sheriff’s spokeswoman Cindy Beavers said.

The family’s pet dachshund survived the ordeal and was being cared for by San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies, said Sgt. Tim Lotspeich, a deputy who assisted in the rescue about 20 miles east of the remote town of Trona, Calif. Trona is about 140 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

Officials said Sanchez and her son set out last Saturday with a case of 24, 16-ounce bottles of water and food on what was to be an overnight camping trip.

There were conflicting reports about when they became stranded. The San Bernardino County coroner’s office said it was Monday; Pennington and San Bernardino County sheriff’s officials said it was last Saturday.

By all accounts, no one reported them missing until Wednesday.

“We got multiple calls about 5 p.m. on Wednesday from family members concerned that they hadn’t heard from her,” Pennington said. “They said they received a text message Aug. 1 that said she was out in the desert changing a flat tire.”

Las Vegas Police Officer Bill Cassell, a department spokesman, would not release a missing persons report. He said investigators checked the woman’s apartment in Las Vegas and began coordinating a search with San Bernardino County sheriff’s officials.

Pennington said an air and ground search was launched at dawn Thursday, and the woman and her son’s body were found about 11 a.m.

He said a park ranger followed tire tracks on a dirt road into the desert, and at one point passed an abandoned tire and rim and water bottle.

The ranger found Sanchez waving for help outside the vehicle, which Pennington said apparently hit an underground animal den and became badly stuck in the sand. The boy’s body was inside the Jeep.

Sanchez was taken to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in Las Vegas, about 130 miles east of Trona. Hospital spokeswoman Ashlee Seymour said the woman was in fair condition but could not be interviewed.

Sanchez told authorities she couldn’t get a cell phone signal, and even hiked to the top of a peak to try. Authorities said the pair had no maps and quickly consumed the food and water they brought.

Pennington said cellular service is spotty and global positioning satellite directions can be unreliable on unmaintained roads and open desert in and around Death Valley.

“A GPS does not replace a map, a compass, checking in at the visitor center and letting people know where you’re going to be,” Pennington said.

He said searchers mistakenly looked late Wednesday for Sanchez in campgrounds in the Panamint Mountains, based on family members’ reports that she planned to camp in free sites and visit the Scotty’s Castle attraction in the far northeast corner of the vast national park.

The chief ranger said family members in the Midwest described Alicia Sanchez as a nurse who recently moved to Las Vegas and was working at a Las Vegas hospital. He said she had been due to work Wednesday evening.

Another child has been injured. This time a little girl has been shot accidentally from a gun that was kept in her home. Her mom has been arrested and bail was set. It seems that the child is doing better but we need to know how the other child got the weapon..if in fact that is how the child was shot. No one seemed to know at the time of the accident..Please pray for the family and the children..

Coyfee signing off…

The mother of a 5-year-old girl who was shot accidentally at an Orlando apartment complex has been arrested, police said Wednesday.

Arkeisha Perez, 26, was charged with aggravated child abuse, allowing a minor access to a weapon with injury and unsafe storage of a firearm, police said. Her other children were placed with relatives.

Exactly what happened is unclear. The girl’s father, Jarvis Sims, told reporters that another child may have shot her. That could not be confirmed.

Jazyire Emery Sims, 5, who is in critical condition, was standing near the front door of her mother’s home at Willow Bend Apartments when a bullet pierced her body about 11 p.m. Tuesday, police said.

After the shooting, the girl’s mother and uncle began to drive her to the hospital. But after a few miles, they flagged down an Orange County deputy on Hiawassee Road at Ironwood Drive, police Lt. Darryl Braunskill said.

An ambulance was called to the intersection and took the child to the hospital. She was taken into emergency surgery and was recovering Wednesday at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children.

When Jazyire is released, she will be placed in a foster home, Department of Children and Families spokeswoman Carrie Hoeppner said.

Perez was brought from the hospital to Orlando police headquarters, questioned for two hours and arrested about 4 p.m., police said. She was booked into the Orange County Jail with bail set at $2,700.

Few residents were outside at the complex Wednesday morning. Some men surveyed the door to the apartment where the child was shot, even as large cockroaches crawled on the walls and the pavement nearby.

“It’s too close to home,” said Alnisa Jackson, 22, who lives with her children and their father in the building next door to where the girl was shot. “It’s not safe.”

Jackson’s 3-year-old daughter often played with the injured child.

Another neighbor, Anthony Miles, sat outside his apartment smoking cigarettes. He was home Tuesday night when the police arrived but didn’t hear the gunshot.

“I was at home, and I heard the cops,” Miles said. “Then someone knocked on my door and said the baby’s been shot.”

Miles said the apartment complex is dangerous, and he tries not to go outside at night.

“Right now is the safest time to be outside,” he said. “I’m scared to come outside at night. It’s just a bad neighborhood.”

Investigators are trying to determine how many people were in the apartment when the shooting occurred. Jazyire has three siblings. A judge Wednesday ordered them placed with a relative, Hoeppner said. One of the children was home when Jazyire was shot. The other two were with a family member.

Witnesses at the apartment complex have not provided any leads in the case, Braunskill said.

“We don’t have any suspects,” Braunskill said. “You got people in the apartment complex and something happened. They have to have some sort of idea of what happened or saw what was going on at the apartment.”

He said the lack of cooperation from witnesses is frustrating.

“It hinders us from doing our job and puts the general public at risk,” Braunskill said. “We’ve got one or more subjects that has hit a 5-year-old girl with a bullet, and they are out there running around with a firearm.”

Well ladies this is a older story but the fact still remains that many black fathers have so many children that they are unable to support the children. This generates alot of the struggle on the children’s mother. I will share that I have five children and the five children have three different fathers (2-1-2). The struggle to support my children is one that has born creativity aswell as having shifted me into becoming quite frugile.

Coyfee signing off…

29-Year-Old Has 21 Kids With 11 Women

As if Octomom wasn’t bad enough, a Tennessee man, 29 year old Desmond Hatchett has now fathered at least 21 children he can’t support. Hatchett was in child support court again last week. His name appeared on the dockett 11 times in one day, representing 15 of his children.

Hatchett says he wasn’t out to set a record. He says he never intended to have this many children, “It just happened.” He fathered the children by at least 11 different women and he claims all of the mothers knew about his large family. The children range in age from newborn to 11 years old.

The question Knox County officials now face is how to support all these children. Hatchett works a minimum wage job and by law the state can only take 50% of his paycheck for child support. By the time that money is split 21 ways, some of the mothers get less than $2 per month. That leaves the taxpayers footing a large portion of the bill for these children.

The mother inspected her son’s cell phone and found hundreds of calls and text messages from Weber on it, with the last one reading, “Erase your phone.”

“She said she was remorseful,” said Weber’s lawyer, Donald Vogelman, who blamed his client’s behavior on a dysfunctional upbringing. “She accepted responsibility for what she did.”

The family agreed to the plea deal because they didn’t want the teenager to have to testify in a lengthy court case, prosecutors said. Weber, from West Babylon, L.I., is also barred from all social networking sites frequented by minors.

This mom wins the worst mom of the year award. This story is so un-nerving that a mother could kill her own child. I now see why men frequently compare women to dogs; female dogs sometime kill their own young.

I continue to advocate for safety nets for children of parents of mental illness. When my children were younger I would get upset and not see the good in the social workers that hovered over me. They were already mothers and had children of their own. They knew how difficult it would be and they were trying to prepare me for the bumps in the road. I recieved their and now I try to carry the torch to other young mothers. offering advice and support.

Please contact your Congressman and tell them Social workers need more funding. We need them to be able to counsel and support the mothers that maybe in crisis. It is a difficult thing to have to admit that you need help with your child. It makes a mom feel like a failure. I know, I felt that way and it was difficult to become confident in my craft(mothering).

Coyfee signing off…

8/4/09

Sandstone Woman Charged with Murdering Daughter

by Mike Gainor

Three years after the death of 10-year-old Lakesha Victor, Pine County investigators have mounted a murder case against her mother.

A Sandstone woman Ludusky Sue Hotchkiss, 29, of Sandstone, formerly of Hinckley, has been charged with second-degree murder and three counts of second-degree manslaughter in the death of her 10-year-old daughter on Aug. 20, 2006

Hotchkiss was accused of felony neglect and endangerment for failing to provide her severely-disabled daughter with proper nutrition, health care or supervision, which led directly to her death.

Charges were filed against Hotchkiss in Pine County District Court on July 15.

According to police reports, Pine County Sheriff’s Department deputies were dispatched to a home in Hinckley on the night of Aug. 20, 2006 on a report that a child was not breathing. In the residence, Victor’s body was lying on the sofa next to Hotchkiss. Her arms and legs were stiff, and blood had pooled in the lowest parts of her body, indicating that she had been deceased for some time. Hotchkiss went out to the front lawn where she was “crying and vomiting on the ground,” and told a deputy that her home had been broken into the night before, and now felt “like she was raped too.”

She asked a deputy to take pictures of bruises on her body. When the deputy replied that they had to complete the death investigation first, Hotchkiss left the premises and did not return.

In the Hotchkiss residence

Police determined that four other children, ages ranging from 2 to 11, lived on the premises with Hotchkiss. No other adults lived there.

They learned that Victor had suffered from cerebral palsy, seizure disorder, autism, and had used a feeding tube since 2005. She was not able to talk, and was very limited in other forms of communication.

In the girl’s room, deputies found two bare mattresses on the floor, which was strewn with clothes, dirty dishes and other items. In an autopsy, medical examiners determined that the child had been suffering from pneumonia, malnutrition and dehydration.

They also found a bottle of seizure medication, dated March 18, 2005, with 24 pills inside. Victor was supposed to be receiving this medication twice a day.

Medical records also showed that when the girl was last seen by a doctor on May 9, 2006 she weighed 47 pounds. At the time of her death on Aug. 20, she weighed 31 pounds, a 34-percent weight loss.

Victor was prescribed eight cans of Pediasure a day to maintain her nutrition. Records showed that 116 cases of 24 cans of Peidasure were delivered to the Hotchkiss residence between March 17, 2005 and April 12, 2006, enough for 348 days. However, no Pediasure was ordered or delivered to the Hotchkiss residence in May or June of 2006. Eight cases of Peidasure – enough for 24 days – were delivered on July 7. No Pediasure was delivered in August.

A personal care attendant was supposed to be looking after Victor on the night of her death, but though his timesheet recorded he was working at that time, he admitted he was not there that day. Hotchkiss’ son told police that the attendant was rarely at the house, though the attendant had submitted timesheets purportedly showing he had been working most days. A neighbor reported to police that Hotchkiss had said that she signed off on the attendant’s timesheets, and then she and he split the money he received.

An assessor from Community Alternatives for Disabled Individuals visited Hotchkiss and her daughter on Aug. 17 and noted that the girl was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt even though the weather was hot. Hotchkiss has repeatedly told investigators that Victor “was fine” on that date, three days before her daughter’s death.

The maximum penalty for second-degree murder is 40 years in prison. The maximum penalty for each of the three second-degree manslaughter charges is 10 years in prison, a $20,000 fine, or both.

Hotchkiss is not in custody at this time. Her first appearance in Pine County Court is scheduled for Sept.29 at 9 a.m.

Domestic Violence on the reverse…Essex County corrections officer kills self and her baby

Coyfee signing off…

Essex County corrections officer kills self and her baby

by James Queally/The Star-Ledger Tuesday August 04, 2009, 5:30 AM

NEWARK — An Essex County corrections officer shot and critically injured her boyfriend, then held police at bay for nearly two hours until turning the gun on her infant son, fatally wounding the baby before killing herself Monday afternoon, authorities said. Kelly R. McKenith, 39, of Newark, was pronounced dead at 5:48 p.m. at University Hospital just minutes after her 4-month-old son, Kaire McKenith, was pronounced dead from a single gunshot wound to the chest, said Paul Loriquet, a spokesman for the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office. Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger Woman cries at the scene where an Essex County Corrections Officer Kelly McKenith shot and killed her 4-month-old son, and herself in the city’s south ward.

McKenith, who was hired by the Essex County Corrections Office in February 2005 and worked at the county jail in Newark, shot her boyfriend Louis Goosby, 28, three times, striking him at least once in the leg and grazing his ear, Loriquet said. Goosby remained in critical but stable condition Monday night at the Newark hospital. Authorities and neighbors believe Goosby is the baby’s father. “This is a tragic day for the city. We’ve lost a child. We’ve lost our child,” Mayor Cory Booker said during a press conference less than an hour after the shooting, which took place at McKenith’s two-story home on Huntington Terrace in the city’s South Ward. “This is a senseless act of violence.” N.J. Department of Corrections Louis GoosbyPolice Director Garry McCarthy said police responded to reports of a dispute at the Huntington Terrace home around 3:45 p.m. When officers arrived, Goosby told them he had jumped out of a second-story window to escape an assault from his girlfriend, McCarthy said. McKenith barricaded herself inside the house with the baby, forcing police to establish a perimeter and set up a mobile command post, McCarthy said.

Over the next hour, a police negotiatior made contact several times with McKenith, who agreed to surrender and bring the baby out, unharmed, as soon as she got dressed. But around 5:20 p.m. police heard gunfire from inside the house. When officers entered, they found both mother and son suffering from gunshot wounds. McKenith apparently fired two shots, striking the child once in the chest before shooting herself in the head, said police Detective Todd McClendon, a spokesman. Both victims were taken to University Hospital, where they later died. Neighbors screamed when they heard what had happened. One woman collapsed in tears in the middle of the street. “Tell me this is a dream,” one neighbor said. Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger Newark Police Director Garry McCarthy, center, Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr. and Newark Mayor Cory Booker, right, walk away from the scene where an Essex County Corrections Officer Kelly McKenith shot and killed her 4-month old son, Kaire McKenith, wounded her boyfriend and took her own life in Newark. McCarthy and Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr. said they believed the gun McKenith used was her service weapon, issued by the county corrections department.

DiVincenzo said McKenith had an exemplary work record, leaving supervisors and colleagues to grasp for answers. “She was a good employee, and she did her job well at our correctional center,” he said. “There was nothing she was ever written up on. She followed procedures. It’s just a terrible, terrible tragedy. What made her flip? What made her snap? Nobody can understand how something like this could have happened.” DiVincenzo said McKenith had recently returned from maternity leave. Internal affairs investigators were exploring the possibility McKenith met Goosby while he was an inmate at the county jail. Goosby has a record that includes convictions for drug-dealing, weapons possession and death by auto. DiVincenzo said investigators would seek to match up the dates to determine whether Goosby was in the county lockup while McKenith worked there. “It’s something that has to be looked at,” the county executive said. According to state Department of Corrections records, Goosby was released from prison in June 2006 after serving time for a weapons conviction stemming from a December 2003 incident. Newark officials talk about Kelly McKenith who killed her baby and herself Goosby spent two days in the Essex County Jail in January, though it was not immediately clear whether he was in the same area as McKenith or if the two ever came in contact. Goosby had passed through the jail at least four other times dating to 1998, but all of those cases were before McKenith began her job in 2005. Al Ortiz, the jail’s acting director, said it’s possible the two knew one another long before McKenith came to work at the jail. “She may have known him before, during and after,” he said.

South Ward Councilman Oscar James, who lives on Schuyler Avenue, a block away from the shooting, was within earshot during the final moments leading up to McKenith’s suicide. “You could hear the baby crying,” James said, shaking his head. “It was pretty disturbing.” Marcus Nunn was visiting his aunt on Huntington Terrace when he heard several shots from the direction of McKenith’s two-story brick face home. Moments later, he said, he saw a man in a white shirt walk across Hawthorne, his shirt blood-soaked. A family friend, who only identified himself as “Zak,” said McKenith was a lifelong Newark resident who always made a point of staying out of trouble. “She never had a record, never did nothing,” he said. “She didn’t drink, she didn’t smoke. Kelly was a good girl. All her life, she was a good girl.” Officials are still trying to determine what led up to today’s dispute, but Booker promised a thorough investigation and said the city needed answers following what he described as a “truly heinous act.” “When you lose a child,” he said, “you lose a piece of your city.” Staff writers Mark Mueller and Rohan Mascarenhas contributed to this report.

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